How to Quiet the Home

Some good advice here at  the Nester on quieting the home. Not audible noise {my home needs a little more noise}, but visual noise {and that is loud here}.

An excerpt:

• Remove every thing smaller than a football and place it on some surface in another room {the breakfast or dining room table will do}
• Remove baskets, magazines, plants, pillows, every thing but furniture, lamps, rugs and big art
• Notice any huge “holes” or areas that are too quiet and cold and fill them in with a purposeful item or 3 if you must

Follow this link for the rest of the post.

365 Days of Clean Update

Daniel and I are still enjoying this. I usually ask him what he is going to get rid of for the day when he gets home from work and before we sit down for dinner. It hasn't been a whole month yet, since we started in late February, but I know Daniel and I are starting to wonder if we will run out of things to get rid of. Daniel, perhaps, since he owns less stuff then I and he wouldn't dare get rid of a home decor thing without asking me. But I as I reminded us both, we keep bringing things in so there will always be something to get rid of!

I have found that this exercise has been helpful in getting rid of the hard things or the things we have been dithering about or just never made the decision to get rid of it. And while a rule was trash didn't count, I defined trash as things that were obviously trash, that didn't require any thought. There are things on the list that sound like trash or should have been trash but either were never thrown out or required some letting go.

In February we got rid of:

Batteries {sounds like trash, but they were big and needed to be taken to a place to recycle, so when that was done it could be written down}

An unfinished teapot

Fake Baileys {nasty stuff! Had been sitting around for a year because no one wanted to deal with it}

Pink Cami

A textbook that had no re-sale value
Wine cozy
Half and Half mini cups {sitting on the counter for a week, so Daniel took them to work where he needed them}
Coupon books missing the coupons we would actually use
Blue bowtie {Daniel had tried to get rid of it a while back, but I rescued it to re-purpose it and never liked the way it looked}
Business Chronicle
Headband that hurt
Fake beaded fruit {I did save three pears that were pretty. I put them in my Christmas box}

365 Days of Clean

Starting yesterday, Daniel and I implemented a new strategy for dealing with clutter. We will each get rid of one thing a day for a year. We will still clear out large amounts of clutter a time when needed, this doesn't replace that. The rules are simple: each person chooses one thing a day; it can't be something that was already in the garage sale box, nor trash that just hasn't made it to the dumpster yet {like the pizza box sitting next to the trashcan because it can't fit}.

Yesterday, Daniel recycled a box of batteries and I put in the garage sale box a teapot I'm never going to finish. Today, Daniel choose of some Fake Bailey's that was nasty and I got rid of a pink cami that never fit right {thrift store find}.

I made a chart to hang on the fridge to write them down each day so we wouldn't forget.